All posts tagged Birds

..is usually caused by a trouble maker, likely to be something like the Jay. This typical British woodland bird can be a bit of a thug when it comes to dealings with it’s fellow residents. The commotion and squawking accompanied by shaken falling leaves is not easy to miss, in the furore of fluttering feathers you may catch the indisputable sight of the Jay. It tries to raid their nests and they are not at all happy about it! Easy to recognise with its buff underparts and azure blue marking of its upper wings, its headgear is equally brazen with white and black marking.

It’s one of the our crow family and although not usually known for being shy with other birds they are with humans, they don’t like to hang around long in one place and will be off once they spot you, making its distinctive raucous call as it goes. Bully they may be, but beautiful as well, now thats a combination!

I enjoyed making this bird with my usual papier mache body and individually torn paper feathers. I like to get a more varied colour palette out and loved doing the striking black and white markings on it’s head, and the unusual eyes. I added a bit of extra interest with the bits of tree bits. The hand finished rustic frames I use seem to complement the theme.

This picture measures 9 1/2″ x 9 1/2″ so is one of my larger pieces and makes quite an eye catching bird artwork.

Dave has luckily managed to get a few pictures of this bird over the years, and here is one for you to enjoy.

Who can admit to not getting a little heart flutter and smile, when a lovely little Jenny Wren, starts frantically darting about on the garden wall in front of you?

This little brown bundle will be intently hunting for tasty insects in the moss and crevices amongst the stones. Their pointy little beak expertly designed for the job in hand of removing spiders from the webs, so carefully constructed. Usually preferring to stay almost hidden in the undergrowth beneath well grown hedges, it’s the movement that gives it away…

All of a sudden a few leaves are being thrown about a few inches off the earthen floor, something is going in, then out of the corner or your eye you think you have spotted a little brown field mouse, busy scurrying about its daily business. Then you catch sight of it again briefly, and you see a little tail sticking up out of the back end of it. After straining your eyes to follow all the action you realise it is no mouse, it is our little manic Wren.

It also has a powerful voice that comes out of that little body, usually one of the earliest starters on bright spring mornings. This is not a bird to be ignored.

I have done a papier mache Wren before but I think this one is the best so far. When you see pictures of them close up, you suddenly become aware of all the different markings there are on their plumage that you simply cannot normally pick up on, as they simply damn don’t stay still long enough!

So this was an ideal opportunity to show off the real beauty of one of out favourite little garden birds. The paper was chosen and torn into little ‘feathers’ as usual (very little on this occasion). But it was finished off with a little more touching up of paint than usual to highlight all the subtle details. A few people visiting my studio have said they thought it was a real bird and can’t believe it’s all made out of paper, I think I will take that as a compliment.

It will get a few more admirers this weekend as we have an open weekend at Higherford Mill, Barrowford. 10th & 11th December 2016 10-4pm. lots of Artists will be opening their studios so will be lots to see and buy. I’m on the first floor at the front of the mill if you fancy visiting.

How many of you in Britain have seen this bird of prey? If you have you are a lucky bunch as unfortunately it’s not often sighted nowadays. It is a shy bird and prefers to hunt up on the high moorland and mountainous areas. It is our smallest falcon but more than makes up for its size with courage, and effective hunting skills, focussing mainly on smaller birds.

This is my first attempt at a bird of prey, apart from the Little owl and it was a bit more of a challenge for me. As usual all paper with a paper mache modelled body, paper feathers, and metal wire & paper coated talons all finished off with painted details.

The distinctive markings on its chest and other feathers require an accurate attention to detail whilst finishing the piece off with paint to give it it’s distinctive look. The beak is curved and designed to rip flesh to shreds, and those yellow talons are impressive on a relatively small bird and more than up to the job in hand. The large eyes on the side of its head are designed for almost 360 degree radius vision and miss little. A keen mean killing machine!

When I finished and mounted it, Dave said he had a double take at it when he came in and said it had real impact. I think that is a compliment.

Of course you can check out my other birds by clicking on the Etsy shop link at the top of the page.

The Outer Hebrides is a very special place, that has to be visited to fully appreciate it’s unique beauty. Two weeks at least is needed to fully explore all its nooks and crannies, probably more actually.

On arriving at the port at Stornoway, the first thing that’s hits you is that there appears to be a lot of trees. These outer Islands have a lot of things going for them, but trees is not usually one of them.

If you have been to Orkney, another very northern Scottish Island, which we did last year you will realise that in these sort of places trees are quite a rare and unusual adornment to the countryside. In fact when you come across a decent one or even possibly a few together if you are very lucky, you pull over get out of the car and have a good look at them, pretty much the same as if you spotted a rare orchid or such like.

I digress, anyway there were trees! We soon learned that they were attached to the Lews Castle Estate and is in fact the largest ‘wood’ on the Islands. The next thing we realised is that staying in a place near Stornoway, for us personally meant at least a 45 minute drive to get to any of the places we wanted to visit.

For us West is best for Lewis, the coast and beaches were beautiful on that side and the ‘Golden Road’ on the east of Harris is one that has to be done. If you like wild camping that is the place to be, but only if you have a sturdy tent that can withstand the almost constant wind that is the norm here.

Grazing cattle near Northton, Isle of Harris

By the second week we had driven around most of the Island and visited nearly all the tourist attractions, Callanish Stones, Brochs, Great Bernera. But we had not seen a Golden or Sea Eagle, which we had hoped for, we did hear of Corncrakes in the area but we didn’t come across one. Dave still got a few nice pictures though.

Ringed Plover

Redshank

Highland Cow, west coast of Lewis

Tiny splash of colour, bleak moorland Shieling

On our list was the Blackhouses village, which is a museum village on the coast, I really enjoyed learning about the history of the houses and the way of life for these people. It seems it was not an easy one but they seemed content enough with it apparently.

It was not busy when we visited and a few folk were looking around the houses. We wandered around the little Blackhouse and came face to face with Robson Green off the telly. Apparently he’s filming a new series for ITV, he was just wandering around the site chatting to folk at that point, not filming. He very kindly agreed to have a photo taken with me, I have to say a great one of him but a terrible one of me. I weigh 8 stone honestly!

With Robson Green

On the last day we had a look at the exhibition centre ‘An Lanntair’ in Stornaway and just setting up his latest exhibition was the photographer Ian Lawson, who produced a fantastic book called ‘From The Land Comes Cloth’ which is documenting the Harris Tweed story with the most amazing photographs, Dave bought me the book for Xmas. So another posing photo opportunity was had for us both, he also seemed a very nice chap and happily chatted to us.

With Ian Lawson

We also saw some weaving nearby of the famous tweed, the guy doing it in his garage was an ex banker from Scotland. They have to pedal the machine in their home premises for it to qualify for the Harris Tweed seal apparently.

All in all a great holiday and one I suggest you try for yourself soon.

It’s been a while I know, but I finally got around to trying a new recycled paper idea that has been buzzing around my head for a while. I love the 3d feel to wall art, so this picture was no exception.

Little Owl

The Little Owl has been carefully cut out of the board to reveal the rolled paper tubes underneath it. It took me a while to decide which bird to start with, but as this is my favourite little bird of prey…. Although that is probably a loose term for this cutie as it seems to prefer insects to anything much larger, but it will take small mammals. With its fluffy claws helping to define it as an owl I thought this was an ideal one to start with.

All my bird pictures have a natural look to them and with the hand finished aged frame, this is no exception. The paper is from recycled magazines, rolled up individually into tubes. I sort of tried to pick complementary colours for the tubes in this one but I don’t think it really matters and I will use a general mix next time. All the paper has been varnished at least twice to protect and strengthen it and on the front the cut out board has relevant owl txt on it. The back of the picture has a copy of an attractive sketch of a Little Owl so you get the full feel for this feisty little bird.

I’m quite happy with it and I like the contemporary but subtle look of it. The open frame invites you to peer deeply inside the box to see how much of the paper tubes you can see.

Visit our Etsy shop link at the top of the page to view my other bird art.

I have two more pieces in the early stages of work, so hopefully in the next week or two, more birds should be fluttering onto this page!

I have been busy dreaming up new items to add to my Etsy shop, and realised that a lot of people may not be able to justify buying Art for arts sake.

I know how they feel as I love to buy some beautiful piece of Art work that also has a practical purpose, or useable art.

So I have been adding pieces that feature photographic copies of my originals that can be used for something other that just to be admired, hanging on the wall. David already has a range of mugs with his beautiful images of birds on them, the flying Barn Owl being particularly popular.

New coffee mugs.

I decided what is good for the goose is good for the gander so to speak. So I have done a few coffee mugs and coasters featuring some of my birds, I’m quite pleased the way they have turned out actually. I think the small garden birds look really good!

These are ideal as gifts for a house warming gift or nature lover and completely original. Of course they are also dishwasher proof.

More mugs.

So now you can bring the wildlife into your kitchen every time you enjoy your favourite cuppa. These are £12 + p&p from my online shop. Please click on my Etsy shop at the top of the page to order yours for Xmas.

When we visited Orkney in May/June, we loved the different bird life we saw there, especially the seabirds around the dramatic rocky coastline.

But what we really wanted to see was the Puffins, we had done a little research and it seems these birds liked certain points on the Island more than others. The more windy and exposed the cliffs were the better it seems.

We first went to the Brough of Birsay, we had to wait for the tide to go out before we could walk over the causeway to the small Island. The ancient Viking settlement and graveyard was fascinating to walk around. Due to the safe position overlooking the shore you can see why this spot was chosen in an age where it seems battles were never far away.

Windy and exposed was certainly a feature of this rocky outcrop, where it looks like one side has sunk down whilst the other was jutting up and out into the North Sea. We battled up the hillside against the wind and walked around the top edge of the Island, where apparently the Puffins hang out on the cliff edges. After scanning the cliffs for about an hour we saw… one! Oh and a feral cat, which may or may not be connected.

The next Puffin adventure was to be the northern Island of Westray about an hours ferry ride from the mainland. We set off nice and early and first walked around some of the archaeological sites along the bay, this was brilliant as a team had had just uncovered a stone age well on the beach, still filling with Crystal clear water. Then it was off to see what we had come for, so we hopped back on the bus down to a spot on the coast known for Puffins, by this time it was very windy and starting to rain a little. There were various rocky stacks standing out from the cliff edges, and after binoculars were trained on the right spot, sure enough there were some Puffins. Not lots of them but enough, it was a joyful sight to see their clown like faces and made the weather trying to blow us over seem insignificant. Apparently the best time to see them is early in the morning or evening when the males are leaving or entering the burrow. Also, we were a little early in the month another week or so later and there are more to see, but we were happy we had met the little chappies even if it was through the binoculars.

Puffin – Westray, Orkney

So I have been keen to make my artwork into one of these birds ever since, and at the top of this page is the finished bird, it just needs its little wooden sign on the top to add yet. But I really enjoyed the process particularly the last bit where I added the details on it’s distinctive eye and beak which really brought it alive. It will be on display at a show we are doing at Scorton Village Hall, Lancashire this Sunday 23rd of August. So if you fancy coming along please do, lots of talented artisans will be there. Click here for more information.